area51novel Chapter 101 The Strange Magnetic Field
Chapter 101 The Strange Magnetic Field
The sound was clear and exceptionally close.
It was accompanied by a strange, subtle tremor.
Marcus remained still and did not move.
He stared intently at the recording waveform on the screen.
The waveform continues to fluctuate.
This is sufficient to confirm that the sound was recorded in real time.
It's not a replay.
It's not a device malfunction.
Right now.
It's the very moment right now.
In an unknown corner around the tent, a leopard lurks.
Before long, the sound of wildebeests could be heard slowly approaching.
Immediately afterwards, another unfamiliar noise rang out.
He could never pinpoint the source of the sound.
Compared to the eerie vibrato I heard last night, it was deeper and longer.
It seemed to rise slowly from the depths beneath the ground.
Then, that chilling human voice suddenly rang out.
Marcus reached out and picked up his phone.
This time, he did not delete the recording.
The message was successfully sent at 12:40 AM.
When the news reached the camp, Maurice was still awake.
He was looking through the various data that Calder had given him during the day.
Each of the eleven overlapping time points was marked.
Then, refer to the camp map and complete the corresponding markings.
After all the checks were completed, he sat there for a long time, motionless.
Caller's judgment was entirely correct.
Of the eleven unusual disturbances, nine occurred before the team's advance.
The two do not occur simultaneously.
Abnormal sounds always appear first.
After reading the latest message from Marcus, he went back and read it again.
I put down my phone, slowly closed the map on the table, and shut down Kaler's data file.
He sat quietly in the dim darkness for a moment, then opened his messaging app and sent a message to Marcus.
The following morning, Maurice summoned everyone in the camp.
"I've decided to bring Marcus back."
Kenneth suddenly looked up. "Maurice,"
"There's no room for discussion on this." Morris slammed his hand on the table. "Marcus recorded an unusual noise for the second time last night, and I've reviewed all the recordings. Caller, you explain the situation to everyone."
Kaller slowly stood up from the chair, holding the tablet in his hand.
He brought up the complete data with eleven overlaps on the screen, showing the key nodes one by one, and narrated the content in a calm tone without any fluctuation.
"There is a clear interval between the seventh and eighth anomalies," he concluded. "This interval coincides perfectly with the time when we temporarily changed our advance route. The order to change the route was transmitted in encrypted form throughout the internal system. However, the audio data clearly shows that six hours before we finalized the change plan, there were already signs of a large-scale shift in activity within a three-kilometer radius to the south."
Inside the tent, a brief silence fell instantly.
"You mean," Ella said slowly, her expression grave, "that some unknown entity knew about our planned route change in advance."
"I only objectively present the results presented by the data."
Kenneth shifted the chair leg slightly. "Wasn't the route change decided between the two of you in private?" He turned to Ella. "You and Caleb finalized the plan by the river the night before."
Ella gazed at him silently, without saying a word.
"I'm not deliberately accusing anyone," Kenneth said slowly. "I'm just raising a reasonable question. If the route change was never transmitted through the internal system, then the so-called anomaly prediction before the encrypted transmission is simply untenable. After all, this whole thing never went through the encrypted transmission process."
Kaller slowly put down his tablet. "We did discuss the route by the river," he replied calmly. "There's a constant wind within a two-kilometer radius, so sound can't travel far at all. That's basic wilderness survival knowledge."
"There's wind within a two-kilometer radius," Kenneth repeated in a low voice. "And how can you be sure there won't be any accidents beyond two kilometers?"
"The problem lies with the magnetic field! Just like the Bermuda Triangle! That's the most scientific explanation!"
"Enough," Morris interrupted the argument.
The tent fell silent once more.
Morris withdrew his hand from the table and leaned back gently in his chair. "Marcus is to withdraw to camp immediately today, and the garrison duty on the east flank is temporarily terminated. I will submit a progress report to Linton, which includes two records of unidentified sound anomalies. The source of the sounds cannot be located at the moment, and the acoustic team's spectrum analysis is ongoing. I have also attached the timeline data for the route changes, awaiting further analysis and verification."
He paused briefly. "All differing opinions will be recorded, and everyone present will sign to confirm them."
No one raised any objections at the scene.
Kale and Ella walked out of the tent one after the other. After walking a dozen or so steps, Kale suddenly stopped and looked up at the grassland to the west.
"Kenneth is right," he said softly. "The change of route was indeed agreed upon by us on the riverbank."
Ella remained silent and did not respond.
"In that case, the suspect is either Kenneth," Kaller continued to ponder in a low voice. He paused, silently suppressing the obvious guess. "Never mind, there's no need to delve into it."
After saying that, he turned and left first.
Ella stood alone, gazing for a long time at the boundless grassland to the west.
The howling wind flattened the wild grass layer by layer, and the whole wasteland was quiet and desolate.
After a long while, she finally looked away and turned to walk towards her tent.
When Marcus received the withdrawal notice, he was inspecting a weather monitoring instrument on the north side.
He quickly put away his tools, turned around and walked back to the tent, where he began to rapidly organize his personal equipment.
His movements were hurried and rapid, almost abnormally so.
There was even a hint of inexplicable panic.
It looked like they were hastily fleeing the area.
It was as if if he slowed down even a second, the unknown things lurking in this wilderness would pounce on him immediately.
He folded up the observation tripod, removed the external satellite antenna, and packed the entire recording equipment into boxes for safekeeping.
He suddenly stopped halfway through tidying up.
He found the two well-preserved audio files on his phone, stared at the timestamps on the screen for a long time, then put the phone back in his pocket, suppressed his unease, and continued packing.
The afternoon sun slanted into the tent, casting his shadow long and thin.
After packing the last storage box, he slowly stood up, brushed the dirt off his knees, grabbed the overcoat from his cot, and draped it over his arm.
Just then, a strange sound suddenly came from the equipment next to them.
It's not the sound of a recording playing.
This is not an alarm indicating a device malfunction.
It was a peculiar noise that he had heard countless times in the dead of night during those eight days.
Judging from the frequency parameters of the equipment, this kind of sound should not be coming from the instrument at all.
It was a deep, vibrato-like sound with a rich resonance in the throat.
It turns out it can appear during the day too.
Even in the bright daylight, this eerie sound will not disappear.
Marcus stood frozen in place, his back to the device that was making the strange noise.
He stood there quietly for about five seconds.
He then reached out and pulled open the tent flap, stepping outside.
My gaze unconsciously swept across the grassy area to the south. The open field was completely empty, with no trace of anything unusual in sight.
The fierce wind kept flattening the patches of wild grass, and all around was calm.
He didn't linger and walked steadily toward the off-road vehicle without looking back the entire time.
[Host: Chen Fei]
[Identity: Sub-adult male lion]
[Energy Points: 1036↑]